Newcity Chicago March 2019

all communities” by fostering vulnerability and DANCE TOP 5 openness through her choreography. Chica- go-based Brittany Chanel Winters aims to 1Giselle. Harris Theater. create and share spaces and experiences that English National Ballet returns foster growth and cultural exploration. Bound to Chicago for the first time in by their collective inquiry into what it means to over thirty years with a real a woman of African or Afrodiasporic descent in stunner: Akram Kahn’s take on today’s world, these five choreographers will the tragic story-ballet that bends deliver their individual perspectives during the Western classical technique with festival’s evening performances. Indian Kathak and features an original score performed live by The festival performs in the recently opened the Chicago Philharmonic. Green Line Performing Arts Center, which is a February 28-March 3 much-needed new venue and practice space L. Graciella Maiolatesi. Photo: Rohaan Unvala. on historic Garfield Boulevard, across from the 2 Hubbard Street Dance Green Line Garfield stop in Washington Park. and Malpaso Dance us to grow to new levels.” The center aims “to serve as a platform for Company. Auditorium Theatre. artistic expression and public gatherings, A first-time collaboration In line with this spirit of partnership, Sand- contributing to the cultural and economic between Hubbard Street Dance ers-Ward and the curators chose to present vibrancy” of Chicago’s South Side, according to Chicago and Havana-based the work of five emerging and mid-career their website. Described by Sanders-Ward as Malpaso has each company choreographers, whose dances range from an intimate black-box theater uniquely suited for performing new pieces by each solos to ensemble works: Lindsay Renea the personal works presented in the festival, the other’s choreographers, as well Benton, L. Graciella Maiolatesi, Marceia L. Center offers an eighty-seat theater as well as as selections from repertory. Scruggs, Jasmin Williams and Brittany Chanel rehearsal space for incubating and supporting March 2 & 3 Winters. South Side performing artists and performance groups. The larger, high-tech 6,600-square-foot 3 La Femme Dance Festival. Hailing from Youngstown, Ohio, Benton is a center occupies four storefront buildings, which Green Line Performing Arts dance artist and educator whose work were historically jazz and entertainment venues, Center. Red Clay Dance parallels Sanders-Ward’s, dedicating much of including legendary boxer Joe Louis’ Rhumboo- Company’s second annual her career to giving back to her hometown gie Café. The Center was designed by Morris festival of new works features through her dance company, Lindsay Renea Architect Planners in collaboration with short pieces by emerging female Dance Theatre. In addition to performing as a University of Chicago faculty member, artist and choreographers of color and is a principal dancer with Garth Fagan Dance founder and former director of Arts + Public Life highlight of the Green Line Company, Benton serves as an assistant Theaster Gates. La Femme is one of the main Performing Arts Center’s professor of dance at Alabama State University. events in the Center’s inaugural season. inaugural season. March 15 & 16 Joining her is current MFA candidate in dance at Temple University L. Graciella Maiolatesi, In addition to La Femme’s evening perfor- 4 Escapes and Reversals. MARCH 2019 Newcity who brings together movement and narrative mances, the Center hosts a post-show discus- Unity Lutheran Church. to inspire dialogue about issues of gender, sion on Friday, March 15, a pre-show talk and Ginger Krebs and her sexuality and race through dance performance. a post-show reception on Saturday, March 16. collaborators mine the effects She believes “that dance has the power to The festival will kick off off-site at High Concept of surveillance in the digital age promote change as long as we are brave Labs on Thursday, March 14, with a free on body and psyche. March enough to tell our stories.” Marceia L. Scruggs, community dance class followed by a 7-9 a current RCDC company member, driven by choreography lab and learning circle for local her research in women and gender studies, dancemakers, both of which require pre-regis- 5 The Great Outdoors. creates work that incorporates writing, tration. MCA Stage. Annie performance and storytelling. Also based in Dorsen’s latest “algorithmic Chicago,Jasmin Williams has trained and After the La Femme Dance Festival, RCDC’s theater” invites the audience worked with renowned companies such as tenth anniversary season will continue with the into an inflatable planetarium to Dance Theater of Harlem, Dance Italia and the world premiere of Sanders-Ward’s “Art of consider the cosmic infinity of Alvin Ailey Company. Her choreography Resilience 2.0,” a co-presentation with the the internet. March 21-24 promotes “unity within diversity and respect in DuSable Museum of African American History in May and RCDC’s “Dance4Peace Youth Concert & Community Hug Awards” at the Benito Juarez Community Academy in June. Red Clay Dance’s La Femme Dance Festival at the Green Line Performing Arts Center, 329 East Garfield Boulevard., (773)702-9724. March 15 and 16 at 7PM. $10 suggested donation. Tickets and event registration at redclaydance.com. 51

Design Newcity MARCH 2019 DESIGN TOP 5 Photo: Yesomi Umolu by Zachary Johnston 1 The Whole World a This Land Bauhaus. Elmhurst Art Museum. Celebrating the A conversation with 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial artistic one-hundredth anniversary of the director Yesomi Umolu founding of the Bauhaus, the vibrant German school of vast By Vasia Rigou experimentation in the fields of arts, design, architecture and As the ideas and themes for the Chicago expansion, mass migration, extraction technology. Through April 20 Architecture Biennial’s (CAB) much-anticipated economies and rapid industrialization, as well third edition have take shape, more than ever, as its unique geographical position at the 2 Living Architecture. 6018 the city’s growing role in the global architectur- crossroads of the Great Plains and the Great North. Last chance Lakes. to catch the six-month-long al discourse comes into focus. “We used multimedia exhibition that also serves as a loud and clear Chicago as a focal point for the larger response to our political climate. dialogue,” artistic director Yesomi Umolu says. “In examining the history of the city, and the role Saturday-Sunday, 12pm-5pm, architecture and the built environment has through March 31 “Like many other established and emergent global metropolises, Chicago faces challenging played, we noticed land as a common 3 Keep Moving: Designing urban conditions that require the reimagining denominator that connected to the economy Chicago’s Bicycle Culture. of forms of exchange between human activity, and resources of the land embedded within Design Museum of Chicago. The the context of the city,” Umolu says. “Architec- newly renamed Design Museum of technology and the natural world. By Chicago features an exhibition that ture at-large here is about preserving and looks at bicycle design and extension, owing to its physical geography, manufacturing in Chicago and the managing human activity with technological early popularity of bicycles Chicago is a singular context in which to in America. Through March 3 advancements in relation to land. We also see address climate and ecological concerns 4 Modern by Design: shared by many postindustrial societies,” she this in the ways nature and access to nature Chicago Streamlines continues, taking into consideration the city’s are part of the urban plan of Chicago. In this America. Chicago History thinking about learning and unlearning, several Museum. The museum highlights history, one deeply informed by colonial the city’s role in bringing cutting-edge modern design to the American marketplace. Through December 1 5 Macy’s Flower Show. Macy’s State Street. What better way to pretend spring has sprung than by immersing yourself in Macy’s annual floral wonderland? March 24-April 7 52

curatorial frames emerged as productive ways the key concepts for the Biennial. “Our those four points of reference serve to better of thinking about Chicago but also mobilized approach has centered on expanding our understand both architecture as a practice, as us to think outside Chicago. This led us to understanding of the built environment, well as the societies and environments we live research visits in São Paulo, Johannesburg bringing in a wide range of practitioners and in. “The artistic direction, for each bi-annual and Vancouver. These curatorial frames and perspectives to explore different facets of how edition, lays out a unique vision that frames questions were expanded with our conversa- we organize society. Our four key areas of issues at the leading edge of the field,” says tions with local thinkers and practitioners; inquiry are: 'No Land Beyond,' which reflects CAB executive director Todd Palmer. “We are finding common ground with other cities and on landscapes of belonging and sovereignty thrilled that this year’s curatorial focus will open practices. We sought to bring the meaningful that challenge narrow definitions of land as up the architectural conversation on key work they are doing within Chicago to property and commodity and draws inspiration sociopolitical and environmental issues that conversations beyond and to amplify trends from indigenous beliefs concerning the shape our present reality and introduce new taking place in other geographies and environment, nature and landscape that voices and perspectives,” he says. “Through cultures,” she says, stressing the importance transcend property ownership; 'Appearances the dialogue they catalyze, we expect this of putting global architectural histories into and Erasures,' that explores sites of memory Biennial to inform a collectively imagined perspective. and the politics of remembering or forgetting in future.” contested spaces, considering monuments, Creating a space where aspects of architec- memorials and societal histories; 'Rights and Reflecting urgencies across different spaces, ture and the built environment can be made Reclamations,' which interprets spaces as a geographies and communities, new thinking public, consulted and discussed, North site of advocacy and civic participation; and about architecture, urbanism, politics and America’s largest architecture and design 'Common Ground,' referring to a space that spatial practice will inevitably emerge—Umolu exhibition has many stories to tell. Building invites cultural producers to the Chicago and her co-curators, educator Sepake upon a research-driven approach to historical Cultural Center to address the multiplicity of Angiama and Brazil-based architect and and contemporary spatial conditions, the agents producing and shaping space both academic Paulo Tavares, who have been appropriately titled, \"...and other such stories,\" within and beyond the field of architecture.” critically thinking and thoroughly investigating draws from the complexities and potentialities the city’s histories, landscapes and communi- of Chicago to trace dialogues between Through practices and projects that exist at ties, are here to make this happen. practices and the questions they raise across the intersection of disciplines and include global communities, cities, territories and building, design, planning, visual art, policy- Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019: Septem- ecologies, as Umolu says, as she discusses making, pedagogy, research and activism, ber 19, 2019-January 5, 2020. It’s time to register for Spring programs with the Chicago Park District! Online registration begins: MARCH 2019 Newcity Monday, February 25 at 9AM for parks WEST of California Ave. (2800 W.) Tuesday, February 26 at 9AM for parks EAST of California Ave. (2800 W.) In-Person registration begins: Saturday, March 2 for most parks. Some parks begin Monday, March 4 Activities start the week of April 1 for most programs. Please note: registration dates vary for gymnastics centers as well as Morgan Park Sports Center & McFetridge Sports Center. For more information visit: MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL STAY CON NECTE D. Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners Michael P. Kelly, General Superintendent & CEO 53

D&iDnirningking weeks. Strong demand triggered an Amazon algorithm that adjusted the price to $1,000. “I’m sure no one paid that much,” Borzo tells us, “but it was a sign of the popularity of the book. People love to look back at good memories and special occasions!” Doug Sohn, the man behind the counter at the defunct, once-hugely-popular Hot Doug’s, recalls in the foreword that there’s only one restaurant he genuinely misses, and that’s “the stand-up hot dog counter at the Woolworth’s on the Magnificent Mile… where I stood at the counter in the window facing the street eating hot dogs (mustard only, please) and a bag of Jay’s potato chips and drank an icy Coca-Cola through a striped paper straw. I stood next to bus drivers and cops, moms with toddlers— which was once me and my mom—profes- sionals in suits and ties, shoppers, pretty much anyone who lived in Chicago back then.” Newcity MARCH 2019 Reading through Borzo’s book, which includes lots of old photographs, a lifelong Chicagoan Pumpkin/Photo: David Hammond is bound to remember some of the places. In the opening pages alone, Borzo cites Chinatown’s recently closed Won Kow and Schaller’s Pump, both longtime institutions that were covered in this publication (September 30, 2014 and January 6, 2016, respectively) shortly before both closed their doors forever. Remembrance of Some of the restaurants and clubs in Borzo’s Restaurants Past, or You book came, enjoyed great popularity, and Can’t Go Eat There Again went before most of us were born, and probably, despite their importance at the time, “Lost Restaurants of Chicago,” a new book by Greg Borzo are unknown today. In the late 1940s, for instance, the elegant Cloud Room opened in By David Hammond the main terminal at Midway Airport. In the fifties, the location attracted a remarkable 1.25 For those of us who live to eat, memories “Lost Restaurants of Chicago,” a new book million people annually, including notables like of our happiest meals are inextricably tied to by Greg Borzo, will trigger many recollections Clark Gable, Jack Benny and Jimmy Stewart. the places where we had them. The food was of Chicago restaurants that have passed into It was big. It’s now forgotten. important, obviously, but what was on the history, as well as, no doubt, yearnings for plate is merely one element in the recollected places that are no more. Before even that Eisenhower-era culinary collage of sensations of tables and chairs, attraction, there were the early Chicago interior design, colors and light, the people we The first printing of “Lost Restaurants of restaurants, like the Sherman House, founded sat down with, the servers, the vibe. Chicago” reportedly sold out in the first few by the son of Civil War general William Tecumsah Sherman in 1836 and surviving until 1973, and Le Perroquet, a place Borzo describes as “a hallowed French landmark,” and that I regret never having visited. I asked Borzo if there were any restaurants he regrets never visiting.  “Top of the Rock at the Prudential Building. It was the place to go at the time, for a date or special occasion. Also, having eaten there would have afforded memories of what the area near Michigan and Randolph was like back in the 1950s and 1960s… Train tracks, parking lots, warehouses and all, especially to the south. What a difference from what’s there to see today: Millennium Park.” 54

I asked Sohn the same question. “The Bakery used to greet everyone and give out free shots DINING & DRINKING MARCH 2019 Newcity and Charlie Trotter’s. Why? So I could stop of ouzo while they were waiting for a table. We TOP 5 being embarrassed about having never been kept going back, especially at the insistence of to either. And, more importantly, they are both out-of-towners, because of the good 1 Nordic Dinner. LH Rooftop. such legendary and incredibly important memories of Kogeones, who would some- Is it crazy to have dinner on restaurants in the history of Chicago dining.” times lead a Greek dance, and of fun meals a wintry rooftop? A Nordic- there, with loud music, ample food and plenty inspired feast to get you in the Serving me what was probably my first “fancy” to drink. Petros Kogeones would walk up and mood for chowing down while dinner, The Bakery at 2218 North Lincoln was down the line, pouring the licoricey ouzo to standing up to the elements. a storefront place that felt like a French anyone who wanted some (and that was pretty March 2 bouchon, with close but comfortably spaced much everyone), paying special attention to small tables, the servers all pros, moving with the ladies. He was a character.” 2 Cochon 555. Morgan relaxed efficiency. The Bakery had a simple Manufacturing. The yearly take-it-or-leave it prix fixe menu. There was Restaurants sometimes close not because of pork-stravaganza brings a one entrée served every night; no choices economic conditions but because the owner battalion of chefs, sommeliers, required or requested. Heading it all was the of the place felt it was the right moment to brewers and farmers to prepare, forerunner of today’s celebrity chef, Louis bring down the curtain. That’s what happened pair with and praise the pig. Szathmary. Broad-shouldered, walrus-mus- at Bistro 110, Ambria and, of course, Hot March 3 tached, Szathmary in his high white toque Doug’s—all ended on a high note, with legs to would come out of the kitchen now and again go further if the owners so desired. The 3“Lost Restaurants of to serve a dish and chat up the customers. owners, however, did not so desire. Chicago” Book Launch. One may assume that with an unchangeable Lawry’s The Prime Rib. Greg three-course menu, he may have had more Reading through “Lost Restaurants of Borzo presents his new book, time on his hands during service than most Chicago,” it’s hard not to feel regret for not accompanied by Doug “Hot chefs. The Bakery was, inexplicably, BYOB, having visited so many places that folded in Doug” Sohn, along with bites and on our first of several visits, we brought the last twenty years. Surely, for one reason or from the SideDoor. March 7 two Riojas, a red and a white, that our waiter another, some great restaurants will be lost in asked if he could try, never having seen that the year to come. I asked Borzo what 4 International Day of then-exotic Spanish wine. We were served the restaurant he would recommend that we visit Happiness: All Day several courses—almost always including beef before it’s too late. This inquiry did not mean to Happy Hour. I|O Godfrey. Wellington—and a lot of warm memories, for imply that a restaurant was doing poorly, but I The rooftop opens early to what seemed at the time the extravagant price was curious to know if there was one or two celebrate happiness all day of $25. places that had been around for a while and long, with deals on booze and that people should really visit before owners bites, interactive entertainment Borzo notes of Charlie Trotter’s that “this decide they’ve had enough of a good thing. and a cause: a portion of culinary-school dropout credits unforgettable Borzo recommended a place that I’m proceeds benefit Action for meals at The Bakery and Le Francais for guessing most Newcity readers have never Happiness. March 20 turning him on to a lifetime of cooking.” Le visited. “Bruna’s! It’s great! The food is Francais is not covered in “Lost Restaurants of excellent, and the ambiance seems genuine 5 Mr. Kelly’s: The Legacy Chicago,” because part of its charm was that 1930s or forties. It won’t last forever, even Lives On. Gibsons Bar it was located outside Chicago and required a though I wish it would, because it’s so real, so & Steakhouse. Mr. Kelly’s, hero’s journey to the faraway land of Wheeling). genuine. But it’s off the beaten path, in an launching pad for entertainers Having eaten at Le Francais in the seventies, older Little Italy, and it does not have a hip like Barbra Streisand, Lenny eighties and nineties, we can say with some feeling or a buzz to it. Also, I wonder how long Bruce, Woody Allen, Richard assurance that although it continued to be Italian Village will be able to survive. It’s going Pryor and many more, is considered a world-class restaurant, by the strong but since they’re located on a piece of recreated for one night only at mid-nineties, it lost its luster. Compared to the property that must be worth a fortune, they its original location, occupied early years of brilliance and perfection, it came might not be able to hold off offers to purchase by Gibsons. March 24 to be a caricature of itself, pretentious, almost the property for very much longer.” snooty, and the food not as exquisitely 55 executed. (We visited Charlie Trotter’s in the Any restaurant, even a successful one, could eighties and nineties and, during that close tomorrow. You never know. That’s why timeframe, he succeeded in creating the my new philosophy is to eat out da Chicago magical dining experiences we remembered way: Early and Often. from our first visits to Le Francais.) As touched as I was by Sohn’s fond So could Borzo remember one restaurant that recollection of the Woolworth’s count- people adored and continued to visit even after er—“with the hot dogs heating as they rolled the food had noticeably declined? “Dianna’s back and forth on the metal contraption that Opaa (in 1993). The place got rundown, even was designed solely to cook wieners”—I shabby, toward the end of its run. More and asked him if he thought those red hots would more of the dishes were obviously prepared be as good today as he thought they were well in advance and simply scooped up off a yesterday. “Probably not. And for a variety of steam table. The décor was dreary and even reasons, including, most importantly, how dusty. But for years it had been the classic much I’ve changed: age, taste buds, Greektown restaurant. Kogeones, the experience. It was the time and place that gregarious owner and ‘Mayor’ of Greektown, created the memories. Can’t be repeated.”

Film “Gummo” FILM TOP 5 Genre Buck 1 The Twenty-Second Chicago European Listing Two Decades of Harmony Korine Union Film Festival. Siskel. A month devoted By Ray Pride to representation of the best of the best from each Newcity MARCH 2019 “All I want to see is pieces of fried bacon leave until I was eighteen. I had to move out to member country of the taped on walls, because most films just understand it. I couldn’t have made that film if I EU: Siskel’s programming don’t do that.” hadn’t left Tennessee for those four or five years.” is consistently one of (And with “Spring Breakers” and “The Beach Chicago’s best fests. Harmony Korine has said a lot of things like Bum,” Miami is about as far South as you can go.) that in a career of over twenty years. (He said March 8-April 4 that in 1999 to fast friend Werner Herzog at He is not a “kid” anymore, hardly enfant, the Telluride Film Festival.) Plus, one of his sometimes terrible. Now he is just-turned 2 The Complete most indelible inventions was in “Gummo,” his forty-six. A man who in middle age got his best Harmony Korine directorial debut, in which a kid savors a plate reviews in 2017, for his offhanded yet precise in 35mm. Music Box. All of spaghetti in the bathtub. I met Korine around performance as a middle-aged pepper-and- of Harmony Korine’s output the time that movie was released, and had the salt-bearded john in “The Girlfriend Experience.” on 35mm prints—“Gummo,” briefest of food moments, standing in a hotel (“I really want to touch you” comes off as needy “Julien Donkey-Boy,” “Mister hallway as he chased a journalist from the room but also keenly manipulative in Korine’s mouth.) Lonely,” “Trash Humpers,” rented for the day by “Fine Line Features: A “Spring Breakers”—along Time Warner Company” by hailing a plate with What is “Harmony Korine”? with a DCP preview of a cold hamburger, and then the single-serving his latest psycho-delic Heinz ketchup at the back of the door. As the A fierce and devoted lover of the Marx comedy, “The Beach Bum.” older journalist scurried away, the twenty-three Brothers, not limited to on-camera Zeppo or -four or -five-year-old filmmaker greeted me and off-camera Gummo. March 15-21 with a grin: “I’m Harmony, I hear you’re from the South, too.” A devotee of vaudeville: patter, patterns, 3 Us. Jordan Peele’s sweet nonsense in tightly rolled patterns. sophomore writing- “Gummo” is so Southern, I said. “Oh, it’s directing gig after “Get completely Southern, it’s totally, one-hundred A connoisseur and bravura practitioner of Out.” Opens March 22 percent Southern. I’m a Southern boy so deceptive advertising. how would it not be? I’d say ‘Gummo’ is an 4 Transit. Music American film; it’s Southern, but it’s strange. But A confectioner of faux-biography, sugared Box. Melodrama it’s a genre-fuck. I love the South, love it. I didn’t anew at each and every publicity opportunity. mathematician Christian Petzold makes his 56 “Kafka-blanca.” Opens March 15 5 Greta. MIA Irish fabulist Neil Jordan rematerializes with a Manhattan-set Isabelle Huppert-Chloë Grace Moretz suspense thriller. Opens March 1

A collector of bad notices: in New York reason it became influential and changed the tour of duty into an unfiltered tour-de-force of magazine, David Denby called “Gummo” cinematic vernacular is that it came out in a witness to things that cannot remain unseen “Beyond redemption… An instructive artifact commercial context. I only think things change in an era of relentless imagery. His sense of the late twentieth century, an example of when they’re put out to the masses, regard- of dynamic montage is a fragmentation of extreme disgust with the media that expresses less if somebody dislikes them.” consciousness unto itself: you cannot predict itself in the media.” whether kindness will follow confusion or terror Writer-director of “The Beach Bum,” his first comes after raucous laughter. 68m. (Ray Pride) A collector of mentors: “Kids”’ Larry Clark; feature since “Spring Breakers,” after other “Gummo” and “Julien Donkey-Boy” producers productions collapsed, which debuts at South “Combat Obscura” opens Friday, March 15 Scott Macaulay and Robin O’Hara; Werner by Southwest this month. at Facets. Herzog; designer and Parisian patron of the Transit arts, agnès b. The Music Box will show Harmony Korine’s A man flees an advancing German army. But “Gummo,” “Julien Donkey-Boy,” “Mister A film inhaler (always studious, never a where can he go? With the intricate, envelop- Lonely,” “Trash Humpers” and “Spring student). For instance, among all the things ing Marseilles-set “Transit,” melodrama Breakers” on 35mm, March 15-21, along that could be culled from the neon delirium mathematician Christian Petzold (“Barbara,” with a DCP preview of “The Beach Bum.” of “Spring Breakers,” Korine was working his “Phoenix”) makes his “Kafka-blanca.” In one Reviews way through his feelings for John Cassavetes’ of his first projects after the passing of his crime film “Killing of a Chinese Bookie,” longtime writing partner, Harun Farocki, the Britney Spears’ “Everytime” and the dramas German master of space and pace within of little-known English filmmaker Alan Clarke, Ruben Brandt, Collector confined narratives adapts a 1944 novel by with movies like “Christine” and “Elephant.” If you can dream it, you can animate it, even Communist author Anna Seghers that Farocki a high-calorie surrealist heist picture. Milorad had long treasured and appears to transpose the narrative to now. Fascism, and an A fine eye for photography: Diane Arbus, Krstic’s “Ruben Brandt, Collector,” a propul- Nan Goldin; his cinematographers Jean-Yves sive lark as choreographed as a trapeze act, individual’s need to escape it, transcends setting. In Marseilles, a selection of characters Escoffier and Benoît Debie. runs with the blissful freedom higher-budget are in motion, yet stopped: a state of “transit” feature animated work has exulted in for decades, and on a giddy plane that could not they hope to imminently escape, on their way A crack-up, a cut-up, a pastiche artist. A to better lives than the ones they’re still in hodge-podger. A maker of media “combines,” possibly be realized as live action. Ruben the midst of escaping. “They go unnoticed— to use the word the way Robert Rauschenberg Brandt is a psychotherapist who hopes to except by the police, the collaborators, and did to describe some of his key visual escape nightmares he’s had since a child: security cameras,” Petzold writes. “They’re experiments. A sprawl of lists of influence his task is to steal thirteen canvases with a borderline phantoms, between life and death, could be compiled, lists of lists, even. band of fellow brigands from the citadels of art: the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, the yesterday and tomorrow. The present flashes Books could be written, not all illustrated Louvre… The price on his head escalates by by without acknowledging them. Cinema by Harmony. (One of the best is “Harmony millions and tens of millions as Brandt skirts a loves phantoms.” Petzold pitches a dream: Korine: Interviews,” edited by Eric Kohn, which I contributed to.) hopping and bopping neo-noir globe. Eager to please, snazzily “Transit” An eye-opener to successive waves of young imagined, “Ruben Brandt” artists into the twenty-first century, art-school (Rubens meets Rembrandt) is a artists or not; hate or love, “Gummo” is a whipsmart joy. With the voice of succession of WTF moments that say: you, Iván Kamarás, Gabriella Hámori, too, can frag your fragmented, media-infused Csaba Márton. 94m. (Ray Pride) consciousness. (Even at the time of its release, Korine was fully invested in the elemental “Ruben Brandt, Collector” opens cliché of Andy Warhol’s lasting musical March 1 at the Music Box. mash-up: “Velvet Underground put out their first album, and almost nobody bought it, Combat Obscura but everyone who did started a band that Miles Lagoze’s relentless sounded just like them.”) “Combat Obscura”—faces in your face in the first-person face A sum of other artists, but not their artistry: of an unending war—offers the form of his films remains a collation of perceptual challenges galore: parts, not a pre-fashioned fabric. Even the not only the larger canvas of seductive surfaces of “Spring Breakers” gain how the daily life of combatants power from fugue-like repetition, as if we in war zones like Afghanistan were watching a video loop from a gallery is portrayed, but to equally looser-limbed than his customary narrative installation, repeated, repeated. important questions of who is making the images and then if the images are allowed to geometry, a glassy succession of turns and be distributed, shown, seen. As an eighteen- revelations that keep questions of identity and A gallery artist. year-old Marine Corps enlistee, Lagoze served motivation in flux, daring an audience to pin A maker of lists. as an official videographer with unlimited Petzold’s characters down. And the time access under the designation of Combat scheme: the 1940s co-exist with what appears MARCH 2019 Newcity A maker of lists, sparsely decorated, which Camera. But the more explicit footage wasn’t to be the modern world. “Transit” glistens with meant to surface: the documentation is always dread, threaded with tricks of the mind and have sold in galleries for substantial sums. formal innovation that quietly dazzles. Loss intended to promote positive images of the A filmmaker who understood what he was up “forever war.” Lagoze’s documentation is from of identity is the first disorientation. Gaining another may be worse. With Franz Rogowski, to from the get-go. From our 1997 conversa- the war, but the documentary came a few Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, tion: “The most subversive thing you can do years after, when he returned to the diary of his hard drives while studying film at Columbia Maryam Zaree. 100m. (Ray Pride) with this kind of work, the most radical kind of work, is to place it in the most commercial University. Debuting at the 2018 True/False venue. When Godard did ‘Breathless,’ the Film Fest, “Combat Obscura” turns Lagoze’s “Transit” opens March 15 at the Music Box. 57

Live at The Book Cellar 164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph Tallgrass Writers Guild Story Studio presents YA Trivia Contest Chris Marker's presents “That Rainy Day” March 15, 7pm THE OWL'S #CEUFF March 1, 7pm LEGACY Story Studio Student & Faculty Reading Doug Wilson 13 episodes Greek thought in the March 16, 6:30pm in four modern world “Let’s Play Two” programs March 2, 6pm Michael Smerconish MARCH 8 - APRILJ4A,N2061-928 Orson LUNANROIGROETNHSTSAHEMOUEWRROCICPAAESA'ESN! Elizabeth Weitzman “Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to Welles: the Right” CARMEN & LOLA; 2018, “Renegade Women in Film and TV” March 17, 2pm at City Winery THE OTHER Arantxa Echevarria, Spain March 4, 7pm at Music Box Theatre SIDE OF THE Essay Fiesta! ARJGAUNME2N5T- MAY 7 Stephanie Rohr March 18, 7pm 14-week series hosted by “Feminist Cross-Stitch” Jonathan Rosenbaum March 7, 7pm Local Author Night The Kates! Comedy Night featuring Gloria Foster, Maryse Meijer, and Augustus Rose March 8 and March 30, 7pm March 20, 7pm Crystal Cestari Andrew Ridker “The Fairest Kind of Love” “The Altruists” featuring Wendy Brant March 21, 7pm March 9, 6pm Megan Griswold Devin Murphy “The Book of Help: A Memoir in Remedies” “Tiny Americans” March 22, 7pm March 12, 7pm at Sulzer Library Alyssa Wees Andrea Bartz “The Waking Forest” “The Lost Night” March 23, 6pm March 13, 7pm Iain S. Thomas Joe Scapellato “Every Word You Cannot Say” “The Made-Up Man” March 26, 7pm March 14, 7pm Jim Laughren Storytime Dance “50 Ways To Love Wine More” March 15, 11am March 29, 7pm $11 GENERAL | $7 STUDENTS | $6 MEMBERS Go to our website for event details, book clubs and more! w w w. s i s k e l f i l m c e n t e r. o r g /c e u f f Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square! 4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago 773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.com

Playing Lit Photo: Jeremy Lawson With Imaginary 59MARCH 2019 Newcity Friends Scott Turow Discusses Writing By Toni Nealie Legal thriller writer and attorney Scott Turow is one of the keynote speakers at this month’s Murder and Mayhem Chicago. He is the interna- tionally best-selling author of eleven novels, from “Presumed Innocent” in 1987 to “Testimony” in 2017, as well as three nonfiction books. Among his accolades, Turow has received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights book award and the Order of Lincoln. We discussed writing and his forthcom- ing novel, “The Last Trial.” It’s been said that readers of thrillers and mysteries like them because complex issues get resolved between the book covers, unlike in our messy lives. Yet you deal with large, ongoing issues such as identity, the limita- tions of the justice system, corruption, accountability—that aren’t easily resolvable. The issues you write about remain topical. “Limitations,” published in 2006, could have been written for the #MeToo era. (I note that Illinois recently changed the rules about limitations on sexual assault reporting.) That topicality is an asset for the longevity of a writer. How do you settle on topics? Writing a novel is an activity in time. It takes readers hours and days and for the author, often years. I need to find a topic that will interest me for a long time, something, as I say, will “vibrate” for me. I have no fixed rules, but I do like complex topics and situations. How do you use the page to work out big ideas in your real life and legal life? I don’t think any author can describe what is happening in their inner being as a result of their writing, but part of the great pleasure of writing is that sense of working things out. You were a writing fellow at Stanford. What would your younger self think of your success as a writer of legal thrillers? He would be very surprised. I was going to be the next James Joyce, but I had neither that talent nor

LIT TOP 5 the inclination. I loved plot. It took me about are visible before me, as the words a long time to accept that. spill from brain to fingertips. 1“The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny What do you know now that you For me writing a novel has three distinct of Truth.” Spertus. Author and car- toonist Ken Krimstein discusses his wished you knew then? What advice phases. The first, getting started, where graphic biography of philosopher would you give your younger I am now, seems to become harder each and political theorist Hannah Arendt with Alexandra Salomon, editor of writerly self? time. I often wish that my desk chair was WBEZ’s Curious City. March 14 Well, the best news to the young writer equipped with a seat belt, because I lose 2 Murder and Mayhem in Chicago. Roosevelt would be success—having an audience. patience and concentration quickly. I was University. All you need to learn But the success, of course, is a function taught by Wallace Stegner, while I was a about mystery and thriller writing, graduate writing fellow at Stanford, that featuring keynote speakers Sophie of the anxiety and the relentless work to Hannah and Scott Turow, with it’s imperative to write every day, to keep panelists including Steph Cha, get it better inspired. Susanna Calkins, Mia Manansala, the machinery oiled, to give the Muse a Bryan Gruley, Marcella Raymond, Tori Telfer, Mindy Mejia, Eric Beetner In the forty-plus years that you have chance to visit. The effect is a little like and Jamie Freveletti. March 23 been writing, what are some of the meditation, putting the would-be novel 3 Open Door Series: Jenny significant changes affecting publish- at the center of my mind for a while. Boully and Sara Wainscott. ing, for better or worse? But there are frequent escapes. The Poetry Foundation. Jenny Boully, author of “Betwixt-and-Between: Lord, where do I start? The super stores. refrigerator. The bathroom. A visit to my Essays on the Writing Life,” and assistant. Finding the contours of voice Sara Wainscott, author of “Queen Book discounting. Amazon. The rise of of the Moon,” read with emerging the e-book. The internet. Authors address- and character requires a good deal of poets Lily Someson and Zachary experimentation and failure. And time. Arvind Swezy. March 19 ing their audiences through Twitter and 4 “The Lost Night.” Book Facebook. Everything is different every Are there authors you turn to for Cellar. Andrea Bartz talks about her debut thriller “The Lost three years. inspiration or craft advice? Night.” March 13 Several of your books have been Graham Greene, Charles Dickens, 5 Patrick Radden Keefe. Irish American Heritage adapted for screen but I get the Saul Bellow. Center. New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, author of sense they were written for the page. What books or authors are currently “The Snakehead” and “Chatter,” Did you set out with adaptation in presents “Say Nothing: A True Story mind? Often when I read books now getting your attention? of Murder and Memory in Northern I feel they have been specifically At the moment, I am reading “War and Ireland.” March 7 structured for screen—sometimes it Peace” and am near the end. I’ve started 60 gets in my way. They are less intimate many times before. It is quite an enter- and more formulaic. Is this a trend? prise—and quite a novel. Tolstoy is so Are there problems in approaching funny. In the last few months, among the writing that way? books I’ve adored are “Turtle Moon” by I can’t tell anyone else what to do or not Alice Hoffman and “The Red Cavalry Stories” by Isaac Babel. Best book of do. I am a novelist, I write for the page. 2018 for me was Rebecca Makkai’s In my late age, I’ve started doing some screenwriting, but they are different forms “The Great Believers.” and I spend most of my time writing books and hoping to make that world as What is your next book? “The Last Trial,” my new novel about Rusty compelling as possible. Sabich’s defense lawyer in “Presumed Does writing come easily for you? Innocent,” Sandy Stern. Stern is now What does it feel like when it is going eighty-four-years old and trying his final well or badly? Do you ever want to case. The criminal defendant Stern is call it quits? How has it changed representing is an old friend, a former with maturity? Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, charged At this stage, yes, writing comes easily. with fraud in gaining approval process for I have a voice, I can find it almost at will. an anti-cancer drug. There is enormous pleasure in the process for me. I still don’t understand the writers My lawyer brother-in-law in New who find the process agony. Why are they Zealand is an enormous fan. He wants to know “How do you write like that?” doing it? He asks, “Can any old exhausted What habits do you have that help lawyer become a brilliant writer?” Obviously, you were a smart young you to write? lawyer when you started, but what tips would you give aspiring writers? My day begins slowly with coffee and three broadsheet newspapers. During baseball season, I usually read first about There is one way to become a writer: write. the Chicago Cubs, before absorbing the Don’t talk about it, do it! Newcity MARCH 2019 latest outrage from Donald Trump. Around Does everyone have a book in them, 8:30am, I tell my wife, in our standard joke, that I’m headed upstairs to play with as people so often think? Everyone has a story, that’s for sure, but my imaginary friends. My study, the original master bedroom in this red-brick not everyone wants to write, or is verbally house built in 1917, still holds a king-sized oriented enough to do so. bed that generally serves as a collecting place for neglected filing. I face a wall of Scott Turow appears at Murder and double-hung windows and my twenty- Mayhem in Chicago, at 4pm, March 23, one-inch computer monitor in a mild Roosevelt University, 430 South Michigan, trance; the made-up people I’m writing second floor.

Music Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub MUSIC TOP 5 Lasting Jason Priestley of “Beverly Hills, 90210— 1 Robyn. Aragon Ballroom. Power then one of the most popular teen idols in The Swedish sensation the world, now a symbol of that brief, bygone tours her new album, “Honey,” Teenage Fanclub, moment when the nineties had not yet shaken blending high-gloss club music Then, Now and Next off the eighties—was a neat bit of foreshad- with surprisingly powerful owing. Because it didn’t take long for Nirvana— confessional lyrics. March 6 By Anne K. Ream & R. Clifton Spargo amid the miseries of troubled frontman, Kurt Cobain—to emerge as not only the biggest 2 Meow Meow & Thomas Rock ’n’ roll prognostication is the band of the decade, but as poster boys for Lauderdale. Space. defining characteristic of a certain breed cultural sea-change. All that grunge and The dazzlingly post-everything of music obsessive. The rush of being post-punk Northwest angst thrashing in chanteuse teams with Pink among the first to discover a great new band lumberjack plaid made itself as felt in the Martini’s pianist for a night of is twofold. You fall for the sound and early pages of Vogue and Time as well as Rolling “kamikaze cabaret.” March 29 fury, sure. But you also go in for that anticipa- Stone and NME. tory thrill, the fact that you know something 3 Avishai Cohen. the world has not yet, but will soon, discover. And Teenage Fanclub? This often-brilliant, Constellation. A jazz This, of course, will be due in no small part to still-recording Scottish band, fronted by trumpeter of amazing your zealous advocacy: Wait until you hear songwriters Norman Blake, Raymond McGin- intelligence and ingenuity, this song. You’ve got to hear this song. This ley and Gerard Love, has remained a musical Cohen provides easy, athletic band is going to be huge. force in the United Kingdom for nearly three phrasing that conveys both decades while retaining a devout following rapture and restraint. March 21 across Europe, the United States and Japan. Still, they never achieved the mainstream 4 Maria Terremoto. Old success, or cultural cachet, that Nirvana Town School. Any of the enjoys. Which is both a shame, and a mistake. Chicago Flamenco Festival is worth the trip; but Terremoto is Zealous rock prognosticators will get it So how did Teenage Fanclub become MARCH 2019 Newcity a magnetic young singer who wrong sometimes—even spectacularly wrong. relegated to a cult favorite? It may have to do brings irresistible heat to an Count us among those who in the fall of with the power-pop genre the band is often already piquant genre. March 13 1991 discovered Teenage Fanclub’s “Band- categorized under. Power pop has spawned wagonesque,” played it in rotation with an extraordinary body of music made by a 5 Joybird. Hideout. Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” and then fell to long list of “Damn, they should have been Chicagoan Jess prognosticating. Both bands generated buzz bigger” artists and acts: Nick Lowe, Big Star, McIntosh’s ensemble, which worthy of alcohol-fueled debate. Surely, one The Records, Matthew Sweet and Material brilliantly improvises on would take over the cosmos. Our vote was Issue, to name just a few. Blending the traditional instruments, hosts clear: “Teenage Fanclub, that’s the group radio-friendliness of the biggest hits of the a release gig for its new album, that’s gonna blow up. Nirvana, well… maybe.” Beatles with the edgier guitars of that band’s “Landing.” March 7 infinitely cooler and less-played recordings So much for foresight. Perhaps the fact that (“Hey Bulldog,” “Your Bird Can Sing”), power Teenage Fanclub made its U.S. debut on pop is a genre that should have something for “Saturday Night Live” alongside guest host everyone. But it’s the hill far too many great 61

bands die on, at least when it comes to checked by Kurt Cobain, Radiohead and At times nakedly sentimental, the album is a enduring, global appeal. Sonic Youth. Their European tour with Nirvana rock ’n’ roll pastoral, on the level that few have Teenage Fanclub played at the dead center of seemed a ready-made launch, and for a while pulled off. (The Kinks’ “Village Green Preserva- power pop’s evolving possibilities early on in tion Society” comes to mind.) It’s an ode to their career, mingling pristine, accessible tunes there was some confusion—Teenage Fan- with all that’s new and now. The influence of innocence and retreat from what Wordsworth Big Star and Todd Rundgren looms over the club’s members seemed to share it—as to band’s early records, but so does the post- would call “the world too much with us,” a punk fuzz of The Jesus and Mary Chain, whether they might be part of a grunge Dinosaur Jr. and The Pixies. The story goes record wholly sincere and just shy of maudlin. that founding members Blake and McGinley revolution. Maybe that’s why the band’s got themselves into a Glasgow recording studio after having their minds blown at a Dinosaur Jr. follow-up, “Thirteen,” feels like the product There’s something distinctly countercultural concert. The result was Teenage Fanclub’s first British album, “A Catholic Education.” of an identity crisis. The guitar sound falters about the entire enterprise, which may be the Less crazed than anything Dinosaur Jr. ever at times, too enamored of grunge, yet too recorded, closer overall in its flirting with mellow to be moving. The songwriting is stuck most rock ‘n’ roll thing about it. “Songs From acid-bluesiness to the best of Sonic Youth, Northern Britain” makes a compelling case “A Catholic Education” doesn’t feature songs on Alex Chilton rather than inspired by the so much as excuses to indulge in one long, that the city, in all its rock ‘n’ roll glory, for all its delightfully amateurish jam. In truth, there’s futures for pop he opened. It’s not a bad little that is pop about Teenage Fanclub’s cultural it-ness, is no longer where it’s at. “Ain’t first album, which conjures images of three record, just a banal one. enthusiasts dragging guitars through mud, That Enough” is sung to an urban audience then playing them on amps left out in the rain and ready to short out any minute. But in 1995 the band took another turn, intent that fails to see natural mysteries all around. on ridding themselves of the specter of grunge “Here is the sunrise, ain’t that enough?” “Speed Still, there’s no way one can fully appreciate of Light,” another ode to being at one with the “Bandwagonesque” without an immersion in and all it had come to represent. Some of us that first genre-bending record. But Teenage universe, features the greatest hook Teenage Fanclub’s breakout 1991 album was some- mourned the forsaking of all that beautiful thing new: a perfect assembly of timeless Fanclub has ever written, layered woo-hoo- power pop and nineties musical edge. feedback: it was as if the band lost their collective fuzz pedal while on tour and decided hoos that ride a peace-and-love vibe, and Early nineties indie rock was—with apologies never to replace it. But the sound on Teenage feature the band’s best love lyric—“Only you to the Kims Deal and Gordon—too bro-ish Fanclub’s fifth record, “Grand Prix” was clearer and me add up”—sung in a progressively for its own good, which is part of what makes mounting incantation that feels like a walk-up the album’s first track, “The Concept,” seem and cleaner, placing them unapologetically so forceful and fresh. That opening burst of to transcendence. stings-the-ears feedback quickly gives way back within the power-pop orbit: “Moved my to a sound that is minor-key melodic—think buzz-sawed Beach Boys—and lyrics that are feet to a different sound/ Tried to find what was With their 2000 record “Howdy!”, Teenage unabashedly feminist: “She wears denim/ wherever she goes/ Says she’s gonna get left unfound/ It’s funny how it lets you down.” Fanclub embraced the pure pleasure of writing some records/ by the Status Quo/ She won’t be forced/Against her will/Says she doesn’t The album’s height, “Sparky’s Dream,” is rock that feeds on well-worn ideas, often their do drugs/But she does the pill.” The song is an ode to a woman who is subject, not object, arguably the most perfect song the band own, and dared anyone to accuse them of an homage to female independence with just a touch of alt-girl obsession. ever recorded. Definitely, says the eternal recycling. “Dumb Dumb Dumb” showcases “Bandwagonesque” is that rare album without power-pop fan, a Teenage Fanclub track an irresistible guitar lick that almost has some missteps. “Star Sign” and “Alcoholiday” sound sprung fully formed from the beginnings of that should have topped the charts. With punk left in it, while “The Sun Shines For guitar pop, and among the less-noticed tracks, “Sidewinder” is a gorgeously understated crush its guitar-bouncing beat, and pitch-perfect You”—is there a more bubblegum senti- song given to the inevitable overestimation that is at the heart of love: “Then again you’re falsetto harmonies, “Sparky’s Dream” possess- ment?—tests the adage that all you need to just a thought/ You think I’m lying but I’m not.” es the ache of every never-to-be-fulfilled wish, write a great love song is a heart once broken Nothing on the album feels that new, yet (and preferably still broken) and the belief that nothing feels derivative. All that gangly, just when you’re “fading fast and taking this too a bit too sloppy guitar, that unexpected shot far.” Yet its gorgeous sound makes you want music will repair it. of violin, that exhilarating instrumental track served up with a wink and nod—yes, we’re that wish on repeat. How does a band called Teenage Fanclub listening to The Cure, too—delivers a solid shot of power pop. But there’s something far There has always been an anti-pop star age? Gracefully, it turns out. The band’s three less pristine nipping at its heels. modesty about the band. They mean original albums since 2000—“Man-Made,” No wonder Teenage Fanclub soon became a favorite of fellow musicians, the band name- business when it comes to the music, but “Shadows,” and “Here,” are lovely and melodic as Gerard Love said in an interview, “It’s the but not always memorable. The production is idea of being a pop star we don’t take quieter, and there’s a certain sadness at play seriously.” Predictable, then, that despite (which Blake attributes to the Band’s Scottish- having made some of the most revered indie ness). The background music-y quality to these albums (if background music was music of the early nineties, Teenage Fanclub actually good) still packs plenty of charm. failed to catch the next big musical wave, That subtle California influence we feel in the Britpop. The band’s sound wasn’t as lush early work is there, this time more Laurel and over-the-top as Blur, Oasis, Pulp or Canyon, less Malibu. Of Teenage Fanclub’s Suede, acts that rose to dominance in the mid- to-late nineties, and its members lacked three post-heyday records, “Shadows” is the standout, coming off buoyant and oddly lacked the fierce, working-class irony that soothing. It’s solid stuff, often sweet—but characterized many of Britpop’s front men without the band’s trademark early-era edge. (and they were, in fact, mostly men). This didn’t stop the self-aggrandizing glam boy Which is why 2018’s vinyl re-release of of Britpop, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, from Teenage Fanclub’s Creation Records output breaking free of the delusion that his was (“Bandwagonesque,” “Thirteen,” “Grand Prix,” the only act that mattered long enough to “Songs From Northern Britain,” and “Howdy!”) declare Teenage Fanclub the “second-best arrives as a much-needed reminder. A reissue Newcity MARCH 2019 band in the world.” is invariably a reintroduction and an opportuni- Moving outside the British mainstream may ty—say hello to all you’ve missed—and the idea that this band’s best work doesn’t loom have been a blessing in disguise, because larger in the rock ‘n’ roll canon weighs on us. Teenage Fanclub went on to record master- We’d like to predict that a new generation of pieces in 1997 and 2000. “Songs from Northern Britain” was a risky, wholly admirable fans is certain to emerge in the wake of the swerve away from the power-pop sound that Creation Collection release, and the band’s 2019 world tour, which on March 6 brings it made the band’s name. In this collection of to Metro (3730 North Clark). But we’ve been ballads, you feel the band slowing down to wrong before. finally see what’s happening around them. 62

FREE PRESENTATIONS IN MARCH AND APRIL presents Creating Dollars to FREE Based on the Corduroy and A Pocket for Corduroy books by Don Freeman Fund the Green New Deal: Licensed by CBS Consumer Products | Adapted for the Stage by Barry Kornhauser Taxing Rentiers to PRESENTATION Produced by special arrangement with Plays for Young Audiences | Directed by Jamal Howard Prevent Inflation A bear. Ron Baiman, economics professor, A button. Benedictine University, will speak on A place to belong. taxing the rentier sectors to achieve the necessary reallocation of economic MARCH 1 – APRIL 20, 2019 resources and investment. at Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N Southport Ave, Chicago Wednesday, March 13 • 6:15 pm Tickets start at $20 at EmeraldCityTheatre.com or through the Athenaeum Theatre box office at 773.935.6875. FREE Illinois Pension Solutions PRESENTATION Michael Belsky, executive director Center for Municipal Finance at Harris School University of Chicago, will discuss ongoing research into the state and local pension crisis in Illinois. Thursday, April 11 • 6:15 pm Presentations take place at Registration is required 333 S Wabash Ave #2700 for these free events. email [email protected] or call 312 362-9302. Remember, Income Tax Appreciation Day is April 1. Henry George School PO Box A3603, Chicago, IL 60690 hgchicago.org Lights, Camera, Action. The Hangar. A prime location for your next event or production. For more info or quotes email [email protected]

Stage Newcity MARCH 2019 Every Alexandra Enyart/Photo: Jan Abbott PhotographySecond is an Honor Alexandra Enyart on Transitioning, Gratitude and the Future of Opera By Aaron Hunt The roster of opera conductors was once made up almost entirely of hetero- sexual, white men of a certain age. But the profession is climbing toward greater equilibrium. LGBTQ+ musicians, people of color, women and younger conductors are stepping up on the podium and speaking our shared tales with all the strength of their understanding and personality. The transgen- der community is only beginning to have a seat at the table: if you Google the words trans, orchestra and conductor, the first results will be for Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Enter Alexandra Enyart, a trans woman, orchestral and opera conductor who is taking Chicago’s classical music community by storm. Chicago Classical Review noted of one of her performances, “Enyart led the music with confidence and flexible pacing that was always in synch with the singers.” Chicago Theatre and Concert Reviews wrote: “Enough cannot be said of the superior musical of Thompson Street Opera Company, one work, usually in English, to audiences that direction and conducting of Alexandra Enyart. of the leading lights of Chicago’s burgeoning either aren’t interested in or are looking for a In only a short time in Chicago, she has shot storefront opera scene, and moved to Chicago. change from the standard operatic repertoire. to prominence in the storefront opera scene. An audience raised on movies and television, Perched on a stool in a corner of the stage, Storefront opera uses the model created by with the faces of the performers feeling mere Enyart was always present, but never small, non-equity theaters, with loads of inches away, are aching for a new approach obtrusive. It takes a special ear to breathe sweat in lieu of funds, that put Chicago on the and for plots that more closely resemble the with a singer from the podium; this is not a theatrical map. This ethic saw small coteries lives of their generation. skill that every conductor, even many who of passionate colleagues creating fresh theater are quite successful, have in their arsenal. work, in found spaces such as abandoned Thompson Street is itself a transplant from Enyart seems to know when a singer is going storefronts, with minimalist productions that Louisville. Some of Enyart’s first professional to breathe, and how much intake is needed were suggestive rather than explicit, and opera-conducting gigs were on the podium for in that slip of a moment, almost before the placing the audience in immediate proximity Thompson Street when it was still producing in singer knows themselves. The audience could to the players, something that felt rich, honest Kentucky. A shared passion for the works of live fully in the world of the play, because and emotionally direct. Chicago’s young, living opera composers sparked a consuming Enyart championed her orchestra as another ensemble-driven opera companies are having connection between Enyart and the compa- member of the cast, everyone breathing in, the same birthing, bringing contemporary ny’s executive director, Claire DiVizio. and letting go, together.” After completing her bachelor and master’s degrees at The University of Louisville, Enyart took the position of music director 64

Enyart made an auspicious Chicago truth just finally spilled out. It was relief debut on the podium with Thompson more than anxiety,” Enyart recalls. After STAGE TOP 5 that, when the singers in “The Tender Street’s production of “Cosmic Ray and the Amazing Chris“ and followed Land” were working with the stage director, they brainstormed about that with Chicago Fringe Opera’s 1 We Are Proud to Present a production of “As One,” an exploration how Enyart would come out to the Presentation About the Herero university and to an orchestra that of Namibia, Formerly Known as of the protagonist’s transition from South West Africa, From the German had become a musical family. Südwestafrika, Between the Years male-presenting to her truer self. It 1884-1915. Steppenwolf for Young Adults. The story of what happens when a group was magical serendipity that Enyart, of actors explore the long-forgotten—or who could empathize with the story “When it was time, I emailed all my possibly never remembered—history of professors, and a general email went German colonization of Namibia and its being told, was in the right place at devastating aftereffects. Opens March 2 out to the entire staff,” she says. “The the right moment. next day at rehearsal, Lloyd told the Enyart was born in Cincinnati in 1993 orchestra. She didn’t feel it would be and raised in tiny Alexandria, Kentucky right for me to be in the room when the orchestra learned about my transition- within a musical family, where many different genres of music were explored ing, so they would be free to have their reactions without my presence, and and appreciated, and Enyart experi- [their] initial reactions wouldn’t hurt me.” enced what would become one of her life’s passions. Without mentors or role models presenting positively as The next day, Enyart returned to anything other than heteronormative, rehearsal. “The response that I got, any feelings of displacement that might the difference in sound, was so have been bubbling under the surface significant,” she says. “My teacher told me that all doubts evaporated the 2 Doubt: A Parable. The Gift remained lodged solidly in the Theatre. John Patrick Shanley’s first time the orchestra made a sound 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award- subconscious. Enyart threw herself winning Best Play gets more potent with when I was conducting as a trans each passing year. Presented as a part into the study of the clarinet. Her of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s proficiency and talent paved the way woman. There was an openness and LookOut Series. Opens March 3 a comfort that came with being in front to Louisville in 2011. of an ensemble at my most vulnerable When she shared that she had an state, making art without barriers and interest in conducting with her clarinet connecting to people.” professor, he sent her to Kimcherie Enyart’s focus is more about gratitude Lloyd, the director of Orchestral and healing than trauma. “I think one Studies and Opera Theatre at the of the best things about being a university. Somewhere between conductor who happens to be trans 3 Dutch Masters. Jackalope Theatre. Over the course of one afternoon aspiration and fate, Enyart acquired is you have to learn so much about in NYC’s hazy pre-Giuliani, pre-cellphone, pre-MetroCard days, one young man a personal and professional mentor yourself at a younger age,” she takes another to a place neither imagined possible. Opens March 5 and a new direction. “In my senior explains. “You must take a huge year, my clarinet teacher retired,” she says. “I was taking a conducting leap. I went from being a white, lesson every week, I was in the orches- cis-presenting male, which was the tra, [I was] the orchestra librarian and top of privilege, to being a trans the orchestra manager. I was learning woman. This has been a gift. I have a greater awareness of how much the things that make it all work.” Enyart completed her undergraduate someone can be going through that others don’t see. I always try to carry degree in clarinet performance and 4 Detour Guide. Silk Road Rising & began a master’s program in orchestra with me a gratefulness that you can Stage Left Theatre. Master storyteller make it, find your own family, and good Karim Nagi uses lyrics, percussion and conducting in 2015, passing up an urban soundscape to guide us through other academic opportunities to stay things happen.” a social and political labyrinth, extolling the virtues of revolution, immigration and in Louisville. In addition to her continuing work with hummus along the way. Opens March 15 In 2014, Enyart began dating Kelsey Chicago Sinfonietta, the trans choral Norris. The following year, Enyart ensemble ResonaTe, as well as told her she thought she might planning a wedding with long-term be transgender. partner Norris, Enyart will be on the podium again for Thompson’s spring Then, at only twenty-three, Enyart double bill of Karen Siegel’s “The Hat” was selected to conduct the Tomsk and Robin Haigh’s hysterical farce Philharmonic Orchestra in Siberia, “The Man Who Woke Up” April 4 5 For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When Russia, a major coup for a young through 7 at the Athenaeum Theatre. The Rainbow Is Enuf. Court Theatre. Director Seret Scott who performed as conductor. Enyart tells me, “I was a member of the original Broadway cast MARCH 2019 Newcity taking hormones and was undercover “I’m proud to be an artist,” she says. from 1976-1978, returns to playwright when I was offered this gig. My doctor “Sometimes I leap off a cliff and land Ntozake Shange‘s cherished work. said, ‘Don’t stop taking the hormones.’” on the rocks and sometimes I fly.” She has this advice for singers: “Make Opens March 23 She stopped the hormone therapy choices, be wrong, take a leap, mess and went off to Russia. up, do your thing, that’s what is special As the protégé of Lloyd, Enyart was a about art: doing something, right or visible figure on campus and coming wrong. Courage and humility are so out seemed a far-off possibility. “When important; every second is an honor I told my teacher it was more like the and a privilege.” 65

Newcity MARCH 2019 Life is BeautifulBy David Alvarado 66

Logan Center Family Saturday: Children’s Bookathon Sat, March 2 2- 4:30pm FREE Children’s books are the bedrock of many of our childhoods. Join us to continue this tradition as we celebrate the whimsical authors and artists who spin creative stories and make beautiful illustrations that transport us to another time and place. arts.uchicago.edu/familysaturdays Logan Center Appropriate for families with 773.702.ARTS for the Arts children ages 2-12. Registration is 915 E 60th St encouraged. Free parking in lot at LoganCenterCommunity Arts 60th and Drexel.

1. MCACHICAGO.ORG/LOOK | #MCAMadeYouLook | OPEN UNTIL 9 PM TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS | FREE FOR YOUTH 18 AND UNDER 1. LAURIE SIMMONS: BIG CAMERA/LITTLE CAMERA FEB 23–MAY 5, 2019 Laurie Simmons, How We See/Sisi (Gold), 2015. Pigment print; framed: 71 1/4 × 49 1/8 in. Photo: © Laurie Simmons, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York. 2. ANNIE DORSEN THE GREAT OUTDOORS ON THE MCA STAGE MAR 21–24, 2019 Annie Dorsen, The Great Outdoors. Photo © Julieta Cervantes. Museum of Contemporary Art 2. Chicago